WHY NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION IS A CONCERN OF GOVERNMENTS … PART I
By Mugyenyi Cyril
A number of articles on this subject will be published for the benefit of our readers and I wish to begin with Water as a very important environmental resource.
Of the total global water only 2.5% is fresh and only about 0.5% of this may be available for human use, the rest being locked up in the Antarctica ice cap.
Perhaps most importantly, fresh water is a fundamental requirement of all living organisms; plants, animals and humanity included. Life evolved in water and since then all living organisms have continued to depend on it for all life processes.
Biologically speaking all living organisms live in water because all their living cells are surrounded by a film of water. Because of overpopulation, mass consumption, misuse, and water pollution, the availability of drinking water per capita is inadequate and shrinking.
For this reason, water is a strategic resource on the globe and an important element in many political conflicts. Some have predicted that clean water will become the "next oil", making water-rich countries richer. Water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30% in the next 15 years (UNESCO World Water Development Report, 2003).
About 40% of the world's inhabitants currently have insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. Fresh water is now more precious than ever in our history for its extensive use in agriculture, high-tech manufacturing and energy production and is increasingly receiving attention as a resource requiring better management and sustainable use.
Water scarcity is caused by uneven rainfall, runoff due to deforestation, pollution, falling ground water table, global warming and wetland drainage. Water rights and associated issues like global warming and desertification have become issues in international diplomacy, in addition to domestic and regional politics. World Bank Vice President Isamil Serageldin predicted, "Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st century will be over water".
The control of water resources is considered vital to the survival of an individual, household or a state; has political, security and economic connotations. When important water sources dry for any cause, destructive conflict is the immediate result.
A local animal watering point for instance in a water scarce area is often a source of conflict as owners have to protect it from use by other farmers. Such a single watering point is often a source of disease epidemic out breaks requiring mass vaccinations, control or treatment where government has to spend many millions of shillings to put the epidemic under control.
When important water sources dry, say in a region, human migrations and mass death of animals take place. Death of livestock means loss of livelihood to the people and revenue in taxes to government. Such pastoral communities that loose their livelihood will need government support in form of relief food which is still a cost to government.
Some times government may have to fork more money out of its pockets to construct artificial valley dams at a great financial cost let alone posing other serious problems like serving as breeding grounds for disease vectors such as mosquitoes. Such experiences where government had to spend many billions of shilling to construct valley dams are not alien to Uganda.
Mother nature has endowed us with resources of lasting value like rivers which have enormous potential to generate cheap, affordable hydroelectric power.
For whatever cause when the river dries or reduces in volume, this potential degenerates and capacity to produce cheap and clean power wanes bringing the economy to the brink of collapse. A lot of the hard earned dollar must be used to import petroleum products to sustain growth at a very high economic and environmental cost.
The unit cost of power increases beyond the reach of many people. This is also associated with pollution of the atmosphere by greenhouse and acidic gases.
Internationally, water is a resource of particular importance. For instance Egypt has a natural historical right on the Nile River, and principles of its acquired rights have been a focal point of negotiations with other upstream states.
The fact that this right exists, means that any perceived reduction of the Nile water supply to Egypt is tampering with its national security and thus could trigger potential conflict.
There have been occasions when Egypt has threatened to go to war over Nile water. In a once published interview Dr. Mahmoud Adu Zei, Minister of Water Resources of Egypt said “a drop of water is becoming more precious than a drop of blood” according to Alahram News Paper, 1998.
The little global and thus national water available is constant yet the demand increases every second with every birth of a human being. The need to conserve national water resources in form of lakes, rivers, wetlands and aquifers should be given more attention than ever before.
Mugyenyi Cyril
No comments:
Post a Comment